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Mom Wakes, Dad Sleeps

By Lisa Belkin February 16, 2011 3:54 pmFebruary 16, 2011 3:54 pm

Illustration by Barry Falls

In the “Things You Already Knew But It’s Nice to Have Them Confirmed So You Know You Aren’t Imagining Things” department, the Washington Post ran news this week of a new research study that concluded that “Women are more likely than men to give up sleep to care for children.”

Specifically, a study by researchers at the University of Michigan, to be published in the upcoming journal Social Forces (and not yet available online), finds that women are nearly three times as likely to wake from sleep to care for others — fearful children, sick spouse, whining puppy. And once awake, women stay up for 44 minutes, while men are back in bed after 30 minutes.

The two sexes wake up for different reasons, as well. The Washington Post reporter Charity M. Brown quotes the lead study researcher Sarah Burgard as saying:

People are getting up for other things, too. We found that men are checking to make sure the door is locked, and especially older men are getting up to use the bathroom. But more women are specifically getting up to care for dependents — that includes feeding, tending to physical or medical care, and especially for young children.

She adds:

Obviously, the child-rearing responsibilities may be slanted at first due to breast-feeding. But then the responsibilities are never renegotiated.

And no, the ratio did not improve whether the woman was a stay-at-home mother or the primary breadwinner.

These findings echo one of my all-time favorite studies, which found that the sound most likely to wake a sleeping woman is the wail of an infant — and that is true whether or not she has children of her own. Men, on the other hand, are most likely to be woken by a car alarm going off, followed by the howling of the wind (not a baby) and the buzzing of a fly — in that order. A crying baby is not even on the list of the 10 most sleep-disturbing sounds for men.

So, who gets up at night at your house? What do they do when they’re awake?

About

We're all living the family dynamic, as parents, as children, as siblings, uncles and aunts. At Motherlode, lead writer and editor KJ Dell’Antonia invites contributors and commenters to explore how our families affect our lives, and how the news affects our families—and all families. Join us to talk about education, child care, mealtime, sports, technology, the work-family balance and much more